Hi
I am pulling my hair out now! And have Dj's whining at me.
I am dearly hoping someone on here can assist.
Dearly DEARLY hoping....

i shall explain. I'll do my best. Its complicated!

We have the usual  playlists keeping an auto  dj service going of various random tunes from various folders. General Rotation. With the usual station idents played every so often - interval. No issues there.

On an evening, we have some live shows, and some prerecorded that are uploaded into media and put in playlists to play. Scheduled.
So, lets give you a scenario.
One hour show. Scheduled to play at 4.58pm.
I have set these at a few minutes early just to allow for a song from the rotation playlists. i.e if one kicks in at 4.57 just short of the scheduled playlist then the theory is that the show will start maybe a minute or 2 past 5. If a song finishes at 58, then in theory the show in that playlist programmed for 58 should start. So a minute or 2 either way. I'd be Happy with that - if it worked.
I'll then maybe have a 2 hour show programmed similarly scheduled at 5.58. And then one at 7.58. With me so far?
I have told dj's to make the shows around 55 minutes long to allow a minute or 2 for these issues. so they are always short of the hour or 2 hours
I know your first thought. Why dont i put them all in one playlist to run consecutive? I agree. But the above is just a scenario and not typical. Normally there are gaps. so each show has a scheduled playlist. Each DJ uploads there own show and puts it in the playlist ready to go a day or two in advance.

soooooooo
in theory. all shows should play within a minute or 2 of the hour either way given they are programmed to start a few minutes early and they are around 55 minutes long. should they not?

what actually happens. By the time we get to the 8pm show, we are likely to be at least ten minutes late.
now. In my eyes. If a playlist is set at 4.58. With something in it to play of 55 minutes, why on earth would the system put a song in from the rotation playlists after 4.58, say 4.59 instead of the playlist that is set to play at 4.58?
then the same can occur at the next change. so - say the 55 minute show that should have gone out around 5pm, is delayed because centova put in a rotation song or 2 so it didnt start till 5.05, that finishes at 6pm. The playlist for the 6pm show is set for 5.58. So should kick straight in right? Nope. Generally it'll kick in a random rotation song or two, then play the 5.58. That could be 6.10 by that time.
Then the show that was programmed for 7.58, goes out at nearly 8.15!
because the 5.58 one went out at 10 past, the finished at 5 past or so, and then instead of kicking the playlist programmed for 7.58 straight in, it plays a song or 2 from the general rotation playlists before deciding to play it!!
WHY!!
I have dj's whining because they are promoting, folk tune in for say 8pm and hear someone saying last 2 songs or whatever - from the previous show!
Am I being dense?
I am being stupid?
am i totally misunderstanding what is going on here!!
please please please - pretty please.. help meeeee.
before i explode. :-(
appreciated
Nile.

I thought you said you have live shows?
So far (maybe I need to read it again) all I see is that recorded show are being uploaded.
For me Centova has been pretty good with keeping time when I place pre-recorded shows on.

If I have a pre-recorded show starting at 5pm and set it for that time it seems like Centova usually picks a song to time out to 5pm (most times, not all)

But as you stated it would be best if you have a few in a row to put them all in the same playlist one after the other.

This is a known issue with the way Liquidsoap queues tracks for playback; it's not a bug, exactly, but it's obviously not the desired behavior. Basically what happens is when Liquidsoap starts playing a new track, it only waits a short period of time before asking Centova Cast what track to play next. It does this in the interest of being able to preload and prepare the track in advance.

Normally that works fine, but in situations where a track is unusually long (say, an hour or more), what happens is something like this:

- User configures Track A, a one-hour mix, to play at 10:00
- User configures Track B to play at 11:00 after track A ends
- at 10:00 Liquidsoap starts playing Track A
- at 10:10 Liquidsoap asks Centova Cast what track to play next; Centova Cast realizes it's not 11:00 yet so it doesn't tell Liquidsoap to play Track B; instead, it assumes something has gone wrong with Track A (or the DJ has clicked 'skip song') so it gives Liquidsoap the name of a random general rotation track (Track X)
- at 11:00 Liquidsoap finishes playing track A, and already has Track X queued up, so it plays track X
- while track X is playing, Liquidsoap asks Centova Cast what track to play next, and Centova Cast realizes it's after 11:00 so it instructs Liquidsoap to play Track B next
- after Track X finishes, Liquidsoap plays Track B

Enabling a feature called "Conservative Mode" in Liquidsoap is *supposed* to fix this and force Liquidsoap to only ask for tracks when it's due to play them. Unfortunately in my testing, it doesn't always work, and I'm not certain why. But it *usually* works, and you're welcome to enable it going into the settings for a stream, clicking "Raw configuration", selecting "Liquidsoap", and making sure the following entry exists:

("conservative", "1"),

So the last few lines of the configuration should look like this:

----
("live_to_autodj_skip", "0"),
("conservative", "1"),
]
---

Then save your changes and stop and start the stream, and the problem should in theory be fixed.

Thaks.
Dah Jah
we do a mixture of both live and prerecorded on 2bays
my post could be written badly - its not an easy one to fully explain!
the issue happens on both.
If a live show finishes , itll play whatever track it was when live was started.
But then wont kick in the next show , sometimes it'll take a song or 2
ditto with pre.
Alexiu
Thanks for that.
I shall look, and give it a go.
I am not particularly aufait with how it all works TBH.
So your explanation makes sense.
VERY much appreciated.

For consideration - is the clock on your server running on time? All of ours tend to creep...  just a thought.

Hi

I am having the same problem as well Nile in terms of shows not running to time. (Hi Nile btw!)

If I go live at 7pm with a show, that works and I can cut over the playlist.

If I have a prerecorded show in the playlist due to start at 7pm, it will play out some other random track until it’s end, before kicking in the pre rec show. Sometimes, the delay is only 2 mins but it’s really annoying. How do I make it so a planned show kicks in at 7, even overriding the currently paying rotation track.

I thought I had set things up so my rotation list was interruptible but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

Thanks
Kyle
PS) Sorry if this is a stupid question.

In short, Centova Cast is currently designed to never interrupt the current track, even if another playlist is scheduled to start.

A more detailed explanation here:
http://www.centova.com/en/faq/cast3/troubleshooting/scheduled_playlists_do_not_start_on_time

Thank you, that is helpful. I have learned something!

Kyle

This is a known issue with the way Liquidsoap queues tracks for playback; it's not a bug, exactly, but it's obviously not the desired behavior. Basically what happens is when Liquidsoap starts playing a new track, it only waits a short period of time before asking Centova Cast what track to play next. It does this in the interest of being able to preload and prepare the track in advance.

Normally that works fine, but in situations where a track is unusually long (say, an hour or more), what happens is something like this:

- User configures Track A, a one-hour mix, to play at 10:00
- User configures Track B to play at 11:00 after track A ends
- at 10:00 Liquidsoap starts playing Track A
- at 10:10 Liquidsoap asks Centova Cast what track to play next; Centova Cast realizes it's not 11:00 yet so it doesn't tell Liquidsoap to play Track B; instead, it assumes something has gone wrong with Track A (or the DJ has clicked 'skip song') so it gives Liquidsoap the name of a random general rotation track (Track X)
- at 11:00 Liquidsoap finishes playing track A, and already has Track X queued up, so it plays track X
- while track X is playing, Liquidsoap asks Centova Cast what track to play next, and Centova Cast realizes it's after 11:00 so it instructs Liquidsoap to play Track B next
- after Track X finishes, Liquidsoap plays Track B

Enabling a feature called "Conservative Mode" in Liquidsoap is *supposed* to fix this and force Liquidsoap to only ask for tracks when it's due to play them. Unfortunately in my testing, it doesn't always work, and I'm not certain why. But it *usually* works, and you're welcome to enable it going into the settings for a stream, clicking "Raw configuration", selecting "Liquidsoap", and making sure the following entry exists:

("conservative", "1"),

So the last few lines of the configuration should look like this:

----
("live_to_autodj_skip", "0"),
("conservative", "1"),
]
---

Then save your changes and stop and start the stream, and the problem should in theory be fixed.

Just found this and tried. hope for the best!